How To Bake A Moist Cake In A Bread Maker From Start To Finish

If there's one thing humans love to do, it's innovate. This tendency is especially evident in the world of (seemingly) single-use appliances. As soon as one of these helpful little machines hits the market, consumers are already asking, "What else can I make with this?" Case in point, we now know there are many things you can cook in a rice cooker besides rice. This inevitably leads to ingenious and helpful discoveries, such as recipes for microwave potato chips, techniques for cooking whole fish in your air fryer, and methods for baking cakes in your bread maker.

At first glance, options for baking cake in a bread maker may seem limited to yeasted recipes, like the traditional King Cake essential to Mardi Gras celebrations. However, if your machine has a "cake," "batter bread," or "quick bread" setting, you can easily make moist, delicious cakes without ever touching your oven. This hack can keep your kitchen cooler in the warmer months, free up your stove and oven for other recipes, or simply serve as a low-energy hack for making dessert.

Since the bread maker does most of the mixing, all you have to do is prep the baking pan, dump in the ingredients, set the machine, and wait for the glorious beep that means your cake is finished. There's not even any need to grease the bread machine insert, as most of these are already nonstick, releasing loaves of bread and cakes easily once they're done — albeit, sometimes requiring a good shake.

The most important thing to remember when baking a cake inside a bread maker is that it likely won't be shaped like a traditional cake after it's finished, instead taking on the shape of your bread maker insert. Many modern bread machines have loaf-shaped inserts, so keep this in mind when planning how to serve your cake later on. If you need round, thin layers to build a layer cake, for instance, more traditional baking methods may better suit your needs.

Conversely, there are still plenty of bread machines that produce cylindrical loaves and cakes that look a little like they've been baked inside a soup can, though they're still moist and delicious. These cakes may be slightly better suited to carving and shaping, though they're still not great for tiered cakes. You can still serve a beautiful dessert, though — just cut it into traditional slices, drizzle with glaze, and add a scoop of ice cream or macerated fruit.

The final thing to keep in mind is that the reason bread makers create such moist, delicious baked goods is that the compact baking space helps keep all the steam locked inside the cake where it belongs. While it's okay to pop the lid to peek at your bread, doing this to your cake could release too much steam, resulting in a compressed cake with a dense crumb. It's better to trust the process and let your cake do its thing in the dark.